It feels strange to be writing about Microsoft and not mentioning a security loophole or zero-day exploit, but it is the day before April Fool’s after all. Fortunately for the iPad faithful, this isn’t a prank. On March 27, Microsoft launched iPad versions of it’s most used office productivity applications: Word, Excel and PowerPoint, all of them available for free download through the App store. “What’s the catch,” I hear you say? You can use them free, forever, to view documents, but if you want to create or edit documents, you need to have a subscription to Office365.com, the minimum of which is $70/year.
What this means for you:
The lack of any official MS Office software may have been one of the remaining tenuous barriers holding the iPad back from a complete domination of corporate boardrooms. Long a favorite of executives but usually relegated to email-only roles because of this lack, Office for the iPad may allow the C-suite to completely cut the cord on any vestigial Windows laptops they have been “forced” to carry around to do anything other than reading emails. I also know a lot of road warriors who may view the new apps with a mix of joy and trepidation, as it will conceivably allow for more effective work-related use of their iPad on those cramped, coach-fare flights. The excuse of “not being able to edit that Word document during the flight because all I have is my iPad” just won’t cut it anymore.
In all seriousness, this also marks a significant change in vision for Microsoft, a company that up until the new CEO’s arrival, had been a company that always put “Windows first”, even when it may have meant losing marketshare, as it has for so long in the iPad space. It’s still too early to tell whether this change in corporate values will lead to other transformations and products for other platforms (Office for Android anyone?), but this is certainly a step in new direction for the company.
